The problem is grand gestures like this almost always have the opposite effect to the desired one when people are struggling for every penny - and suggest that teachers aren't capable or organising the resources they actually need. So even RE teachers are saying they'd rather have had the money for textbooks or exercise books or their own choice of understandable teaching bible or towards free school meals or anything else.

Grand gestures linked to stingy governments (and even tho its funded by private donors and is only one book per school, its still linked to Gove) always turn people in the oppposite direction. If he'd done it a couple of years ago when in opposition and when schools weren't losing essential staff like TAs or teachers and cutting back on less popular subjects I'm sure it would have been seen as a lovely gesture.

So Dawkins is right to be pleased and for more reasons than he's stated.

Then again it is good in a way, Next time some creationist loon like Ken Walze moans, as he has done, about Gove not approving christian free schools or Tyler complains about creeping secularism being tacit atheism in education you can just point to this. Not that it'll register. Gove has already approved loads of non creationist christian free schools (CofE and RC) yet creationists are still moaning about him being anti christian -

cathy wrote:Grand gestures linked to stingy governments (and even tho its funded by private donors and is only one book per school, its still linked to Gove) always turn people in the oppposite direction.

The only reason it's privately funded is that Cameron realised what a pr disaster public funding would be, and smacked Gove down.Sadly, there's no sign of Gove being given the push in the current re-shuffle. Cameron's booted Lansley out now that his damage has been done, so maybe Gove has still more "work" to do.